Hero
by Vaandite
Summary: My take on the Overwatch short 'Hero', if it had taken place in Brockton Bay. Two shot
1. Chapter 1

_Disclaimer: I don't own Worm or Overwatch._

 **Hero**

The knife held in front of her was long and thin, gleaming silver from the lights illuminating the alleyway.

"Nose," the one-eyed gang member, Lao murmured. The blade shifted to rest in front of her left eye. She flinched, her eye twitching as she felt the cold as the flat of the knife lay on her eyelid. "Eye..."

The blade lightly hit her lips.

"Tongue."

The blade brushed her hair past her ears. "Or maybe both the ears. What do you choose?"

Emma couldn't process, couldn't comprehend the information, her head frozen in terror. The only sound she made was a confused 'huh?'

The knife repeated its previous journey across her face, completing the trip by bopping her left ear. "You see, Yan here thinks she has it in her to be more than a common whore, so when you choose, she'll take it as a proof of her worth."

The girl mentioned seemed almost gleeful.

Emma blinked slowly, eyes darting around, looking for a way out. Her dad was out cold by the car, left there after he refused to keep screaming for her. Then she saw it. A figure crouched on the hood of her father's car, dressed in a black hooded coat that seemed to absorb the darkness surrounding it, making it even darker than its surroundings. She could see the cold eyes staring through the white skull-like mask.

 _Help me_

It didn't move.

Lao reversed the knife and handed it grip first to the girl, Yan. The girl took it and traced Emma's face, the point barely cutting the skin.

"Pick," the girl said. "No wait..."

She shoved the hair she had cut into Emma's mouth. "Eat it, then pick."

Emma was paralyzed with fear and she realized. No-one was going to help her. She was going to lose a part of her, or worse, her life. She remembered Taylor, how Taylor's had gone under a knife, with her mother cut away from her. How Taylor had still come through that tragedy with her mind intact.

 _I can't. I'm not as strong as she is. I can't become Taylor. If I do,_

 _I won't make it._

She thrashed, trying desperately to escape from the knife. She punched, kicked and screamed at the gangbangers, trying to get away. Then she was hit over the head, and she fell.

"Fuck, that hurt. You little bitch!" The fat man was gripping his face where Emma's nails had drawn. "Never mind, Yan. You'll get another chance later. I'm gunna got this whore myself. No-one messes with Bao and gets away with it."

He slowly advanced when suddenly there was a clang and the streetlamps went off altogether, and the street was plunged into darkness.

The gangbangers froze, all looking around franticly, shouting to each other. Then Emma saw a red horizontal slit, and the alleyway exploded into action. With her dazed state, Emma could only see the red line zipping about, accompanied by the screams and shouts.

For the members of the ABB in the alleyway, they saw and felt a lot more. One was punched in the chin, loosening his grip on his bat, which was grabbed by the newcomer as he spun around, smashing another man with the bat, dropping him with a follow-up knee to the solar plexus. Another fell when the bat was launched towards his forehead, meeting the target with a thump. Lao was downed with a hard hit to the gut. Four more brought their guns up, having run away far enough to have confidence in their firepower. The white-haired man touched the side of his visor, the red slit expanding in front of his head like a holographic screen. Running up the wall, he kicked off sideways, twisting towards them as he armed himself with the rifle that had been slung over his back. Whilst the four squeezed their triggers with all their might, his gun flashed only four times, leaving one less man standing with each squeeze.

"You fucker! Eat this, you bitch fucking bastard!"

The fat man, Bao had managed to escape unnoticed long enough to reach the dumpster that had trapped Emma and her father in this situation. He reached into it and pulled out a mini gatling gun. As the barrel started spinning, the so-called bastard merely pumped his rifle and pulled the trigger once more. But this time instead of the lances of light that had been released before, three whirling rockets zoomed towards Bao, hitting the dumpster with a boom.

Emma stared on as the heat of the dumpster exploding cleared most of the dizziness. The alleyway was littered with burning objects, no doubt the other contents of the dumpster. As her saviour picked up a singed, but otherwise undamaged brick, she noted that it looked remarkably similar to the heroin packs on the police dramas that she and Taylor had loved.

Lao was coughing as he crawled on his back, trying to escape from the advancing figure. The red-eyed cyclops raised the brick of drugs over his head and started beating him with it with each word of his next sentence.

"Tell your boss," It was a gruff voice, one that would have had Emma blushing if it had been an other day.

Smack

"These!"

Smack

"aren't!"

Smack

"your!"

Smack

"streets!"

Smash

The brick was ripped, falling apart as the drugs inside fell out. The brick was quickly replaced with a steel-toed boot.

"Any!"

Smash

"More!"

Lao was left whimpering, his body a bloody mess. As the man rose, Emma screamed, and he turned to her when a roar of a truck was heard.

"Get on!" It was Yan, who had managed to steal a truck and driven it to the alleyway. The men who were awake ran to the truck, crawling on the back of it as the girl gunned the engine.

"You don't get off that easily!" The man started to run towards the truck, when a grenade flew past him, landing in front of Emma's frozen form. The man looked at the escaping truck and then back to Emma, who hadn't moved at all. There was a sigh, the alleyway was covered in a explosion.

Emma heard a groan as her darkened vision turned out to be the closeness of the vest of the one who had thrown himself between the grenade and herself. The man rolled off of her and pushed himself up, picking up his rifle as he did so.

"Get yourself and your dad home quickly. This isn't a place to be if you want to be safe." The man started walking away.

"Wait! You're one of those heroes, aren't you?"

The man stopped, and said "Not anymore."

But the number on the man's back would be forever engraved onto her memory.

* * *

 _Author's Note: I was having a bit of trouble coming up with the right words for my chapters for 'We're all Capes Now', so I was rewatching the Overwatch shorts when I came up with this. If my story ever reaches canon, I think that this will be the first chapter of the story._


	2. Chapter 2

_Disclaimer: I don't own Worm or Overwatch._

"You can come out now." I called out.

"I don't see why you're pissed at me." The girl was nonchalant about the whole issue.

"You're a Ward. You're supposed to help people." I tried to be kind about it.

"And you're a vigilante, so I don't really see the difference."

"Trust Reaper to pick up a girl who doesn't care about others and teach her how to fight, then drop kick her into the Wards." I rolled my shoulders, testing the damage the grenade had done.

"Hey! I'm only in the Wards because"

"You got caught." I smirked at her, not that she could see it.

"Grr, stupid skullface. Cool off behind red tape my ass. He's just punishing me because he thinks I hurt his reputation." She was ranting now, about the infamous mercenary who had picked her up and taught her her tricks.

"Let's see. Black coat. Black hood. White mask. Even two identical hand-held weapons. Of course you would get caught. You even have the same powers! Did you think that just because he had an alibi that the police would handle it? You two even have the same catchphrase!"

"I already got the third degree when they interrogated me about his identity. I don't need you lecturing me. Just tell me when I can vanish."

"You won't." My tone was humorous as she froze in place.

"Say that again?" Her voice had a tinge of pleading in it.

"We're going to use the Bay for our base of operations for a while. So if it comes to it, you'll act as liaison."

"Please tell me you're joking."

"You know I don't." The smirk was back in full.

"I need to kill something." Her body was wrapped in smoke as she started to disappear.

"Heh. And Reyes says I don't have a sense of humour. Oh well. I better patch this up or the doc's going to kill me."


End file.
